Monday, March 23, 2009

The Hungry Caterpillar Cupcake Party Train!

I loved doing this so much! I get such joy when I receive a phone call or email from someone with a great request. The Hungry Caterpillar for a 1st birthday bash? You betcha!! Just for the fun of it I decided to document the "making of" the caterpillar, so here it is!

I first made a ridiculously cute and small round vanilla layer cake with vanilla buttercream, covered in red fondant to create the adorable face of my little caterpillar buddy. Fondant eyes and nose, and two antennae, plus little bootie feet for the caterpillar were also made! I did vanilla cupcakes, and vanilla buttercream in a "psychedelic swirl" effect, blending two shades of green to try and mimic Eric Carle's beautiful watercolors. Little chocolate sprinkles plunked one by one into the buttercream created the furry bits of the caterpillar. To finish, I made a baby friendly "berry patch"-- low sugar banana cupcakes with mint leaves and fresh berries. The key to the puzzle was securing each cupcake down with my good pal Royal Icing. This stuff hardens like glue, so the cupcakes would remain secure on their polka dot cake board while traveling. Additional grass green frosted cupcakes with pretty flowers, roses and leaves also accompanied Caterpillar on his journey to 1st Birthday Land.

Eeks this made me so happy... and here's to a very Happy 1st Birthday to cute little Jamie!

98 comments:

Lyndsay Sung! Amazing rendition of that very hungry caterpillar. Did you see Google's homepage the other day? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/5021384/Google-celebrates-Eric-Carles-Very-Hungry-Caterpillar.html

OOOOOOOOOOH I love your Hungry Caterpillar cake/cupcake train. Love the swirly greens in the frosting too, just like the look of the book. That's one lucky little one-year-old who got it for his bday. :) Awesome work mb!

This is STUNNING! I am continuously astounded by your beautiful creations! I actually gasped! I adored the hungry caterpillar book as a kid, and you recreated it beautifully! I love how vibrant the green is, and I really liked the added touch of chocolate sprinkles for the 'fur'. Amazing job, and very inspiring!

merci beaucoup toute le monde! --emily, the frosting tip i used for the green swirlies is 1M, it's a star tip, you can find it online everywhere and at any cake decorating shop! or even craft megastores carry them.

hi callanan clan!for my greens, i actually just used classic leaf green (gel color) and lemon yellow, and blended until i got a bright sort of fluorescent green. that, blended with leaf green in the piping bag gave it a more "tie-dye melding colors" vibe.

CC, sorry i just saw this comment! you can put your cupcakes in the fridge (i use my cupcake courier to do so) but make sure you get them back to room temperature before serving (2-3 hours before serving!) next time if you have a Q send me an email to lyndsay@cococake.com!

--also send me pics of your caterpillar!! i love seeing what other people are up to!

Tomorrow I hosted a cupcake party for a friend who had a birthday recently. In case you’re wondering what a cupcake party is, here’s a general idea:

1. Invite a bunch of people over.2. Make a batch of chocolate cupcakes.3. Make a batch of vanilla (‘yellow’) cupcakes.4. Ask your guests to bring frosting, sprinkles, and other toppings.5. Make gift certificates for silly cupcake categories.6. Get cheap prizes for everyone.7. Have fun!

I am planning on using your beautiful cupcake creation for inspiration for my daughter's first birthday! It truly is a masterpiece! Please let me know what size round cake you used for the caterpillar's head and what tip you used for the cupcake frosting. Thanks!!

I absolutely love what you did for the party theme! I'm so excited to do this for my son's 1st Birthday in February. I appreciate your tips as well with all the supplies you used in the comments. So very helpful..thanks!

I saw this blog months ago and decided that we were doing an Eric Carle themed party for our son's first birthday. I did my own version of your adorable cake and posted it on my own blog! http://lettersarrangedintowords.blogspot.com/2010/04/parkers-birthday-was-on-april-13th-i.html

I found a picture of this on some random website and loved it! I found my way here and then decided that I was going to make my own caterpillar cake for my youngest nephew's first birthday. Thanks for the inspiration!

This is such a great cake. One of my clients saw your pictures and asked if I could recreate something like it for her daughter's first birthday, and everyone absolutely loved it. Thanks for the wonderful idea and the suggestion about blending the buttercream colors for the swirl effect!

I did a search of a hungry caterpillar cake for my son's 1st birthday party, to get some inspiration! I like this idea very much. As you are not in Sweden, I will have to try and do this myself! If you have any tips and ideas to make things easy! please email!

I wanted to try to do this theme for my daughter's 1st birthday party coming up in July - and came to find your site! Thanks for such a gorgeous inspiration; I will report back on how it turns out :) By the way, any tips on getting the 2 color frosting on the cupcakes??

These are amazing! I have two questions: first, when you did the two tone frosting did you make the combo leaf green/lemon yellow frosting and combine it with more leaf green frosting or did you stripe the piping bag with the leaf green gel? Second, do you have any tips on getting vivid colors for your buttercream? I usually swiss meringue buttercream and gel coloring but often my colors are a little more pale than I want them to be. Thanks!

Cupcake Cake catrepilla looks good, I think you'll be good to make a slurry and the cover, just good advice to buy land is not as expensive, and if you try to get everthing done the last thing you need is to try to build as well, make some cookies for the practice of the family do if you do not want to give away the secret between them of another color, it will all come good luck with it

i fell in love with your cupcakes so much i just had to make them for my 18th!! yes, i know, i have style. amongst the mass of alcohol and drunken teens was fairy bread and a gloriously colorful creation inspired by you <3 didn't quite turn out as well as yours, but i loved it anyway. i used marzipan instead of fondant though, purely because i haven't used fondant before and didn't have time to experiment. check it out :)http://we-are-watching-ya.blogspot.com/2011/08/sidenote-i-turned-18.html

Another comment almost seems redundant here, but I just had to say this cakes is WONDERFUL!! So beautiful, as are all your cakes. It's very inspiring. I'm in the land of Oz so cannot place an order for one of your cakes (maybe you should consider moving here! hahaha) so I shall have to muddle along and have a go at replicating it myself.

Very cute! It's great because you can easily alter the size of the caterpillar to accommodate the number of guest you have. Funtique Parties can also be a lot of help if you're planning a birthday party.

I love this cake! We made it for my son's first birthday (minus the fondant) and it came out so cute! Of course it wasn't as awesome as yours, but I really appreciated this great inspiration for his cake. I have a child with nut allergies, so I have to make all of my children's cakes. It was nice to have a fairly simple one this time. I'm blogging about it and will definitely link to your site as my "inspiration."

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About Me

Welcome to Coco Cake Land! I'm a rated G party animal who loves making cakes, dreaming up simple party DIY's and tutorials and photographing, styling and writing about it all. I live in Vancouver, BC Canada with my husband and kid. My background is in Women's Studies, Film Studies and Integrated Media. Jobby stuff: I am a self taught baker and I custom bake cakes inspired by vintage buttercream techniques and supercute illustration. I love blogging and I write for several other blogs including Poppytalk, You Are My Fave, Handmade Charlotte and Craftsy!